Best New Indie TTRPG Books!

there are so many awesome tabletop role playing game and adventure books coming out it's easy to get overwhelmed with all the options and I have been reading a ton lately so I thought it'd be fun to put a video together sharing some of my recent favorites let's start it off with this hulking Tome of crown and skull by run Hammer as you can see I haven't finished reading it yet but already this game seem so awesome really cool system D20 roll under but there's no hit points so whenever you take damage you lose a skill or a piece of equipment I think that sounds super fun as a GM you know getting to explain how an enemy's attack might you know destroy the the player's sword or something like that it also has a really cool hero point system so you can totally customize your equipment and your skills build completely custom spells what seems really really cool is that all of those pieces and parts that maybe in other games are kind of separate systems all relate and depend on each other because of this hero point system also this book is insane it is so so cool I I'm not sure that I've ever read anything like it in terms of a tabletop role playing game the way it flows from like straight up fiction into mechanics of the game into narrative setting stuff back into mechanics into fiction it like weaves in and out of all this stuff it's just a really cool book like like even if you don't actually play this game just the way that it presents the the setting and how that reflects on the mechanics of the game and there's these really awesome little pullouts of of actual Fiction with with characters experiencing the world kind of sets up the the story of the setting really really cool stuff uh I'll have links to everything I talk about down in the description next up is foundations a solo World building game by Tom Anna so this game is is basically just a series of prompts that will help you create a world and draw a map using a deck of playing cards I actually got the deck of cards with the book I think uh the using these cards the prompts are all right on there so you wouldn't have to look at the card reference the book I think this might be the easiest way to to play the game and create your world what initially drew me to this book was the cool artwork and layout just the design of the book kind of shows how you can draw your map as you play and I also think the the prompts are really evocative and cool and I think it would be really really easy to create an entire fantasy world just by spending an hour playing this foundations game okay brief intermission from the suggestions to tell you about how you can support support this Channel and get all the fun stuff that I'm working on I have a patreon where you can get all of the digital versions of my guide books and Adventures and every month I send out a new Zen in the mail to my Legend tier patrons this month I haven't announced it quite yet but I'm making a collection of little weirdo dudes NPCs character ideas it's going to be super fun and you'll hear more about that in future videos I also have an online shop where you can get the physical versions of all of the the guides and and Adventures that I make and also I have a upcoming Kickstarter for Dragon town and the Darkness below I will be talking about this a ton coming up I'm working super hard to finish up all the revisions and additions to this book it's a collection of 10 zenes in one formatted so everything ties together and it's like one big Awesome Adventure campaign there's a link in the description where you can sign up to be notified when the campaign starts I don't have an exact date for when the kickstarter is going to happen because I want to be completely completely 100% done with the book before I launch the kickstarter I'm getting very very close so it'll definitely happen soonish thank you for indulging me and thank you for the support back to the the fun new tabletop role playing game books okay next up is cloud Empress by watt this is a a nazaka the Valley of the wind inspired Mothership based tabletop role playing game is the the game and the setting there's actually a Kickstarter going on right now with a setting expansion that looks very awesome and a reprint of all of these Zen and box set stuff super super cool looking this is the kind of game that I just wish I had more time cuz I would love to run a full full like Rich campaign in this world it's apocalyptic science fantasy stuff and I think what cloud Empress really Nails about the the nazaka feeling it's not just the giant bugs and the the poisonous Wasteland and the militaristic factions and stuff you know usually with apocalyptic settings it's it's more dark and scary but Cloud Empress has this sort of melancholic feeling uh I think that's probably the right word to describe it the game system is based on Mothership so it's still d dangerous you know there's cool classes you're you're rolling your D100 against your skills and there's stress and panic but everything written in this game and the the supplementary adventures and setting guide Zen really just excellently reinforces the fantasy of this place there's a mystery to it an alienness to it there's still cool fantasy spells and Dungeons and items and stuff all of the artwork is so incredible throughout all of these I can't wait for this life and death expansion stuff I'm just really really enamored by this this Cloud Empress game okay next up something a little bit different uh combining two of my favorite things tabletop role playing games and comics my friend Scott kurts just came out with this excellent graphic novel called table Titans Club if you have a kid that is into tabletop role playing games do yourself a favor grab this book it's a wonderful story about a group of kids that have a D and D Club at their middle school and it sort of goes in and out of the real world and the fantasy world and you know just the the struggles they have of being a kid's great Coming of Age Story the artwork is great the story is super fun I'm really proud of my friend and all the the work that he put into it and now the book's finally out it's even available and Target super super cool if you like comics and role playing games definitely grab a copy of table Titans Club next up we have these two brand new osse old school Essentials Adventure anthologies I stinking love these books so much I just feel like this is how you present a collection of one shot dungeons there's a bunch of wonderful authors in these things uh the illustrations are fantastic so so good each each author each Adventure has its own illustrator that that accompany and and really does a great job of of conveying the the feel of the adventures and these are all like classic dungeon Adventures get in get out you know get your treasure solve a problem really easy to drop into a campaign or run as a one shot and the the thing I really love about these books these old school essential adventure books is the the layout it's so straightforward so easy it's just the setup and then room by room where there's a monster it gets pulled out to a side where there's a magic item it gets pulled out to the side the descriptions of each room are just what the players would see right away and then what they would see if they they look or investigate a little bit more Glen Seal's maps are perfect they're exactly what you need to easily run the dungeon and I think the other thing that's really cool about these anthologies is that as you're reading through each of these Adventures you can really tell even though they're classic fantasy dungeons you can really tell just the the where each author is coming from there their different sensibilities you know going from Dogo noa's Cathedral of the Crimson death that's all about this like blood cult these like blood Knight people to Nate's Shrine of the oozing serpent it sounds similar but NES is about this giant soot Slug and these little frog guys and gnomes and it's whimsical and each of the adventures in here all have a little bit of a different feel I can't believe the value you can can get out of these little hard cover books definitely check out the osc adventure anthologies here's another one that's a little different 21 hand games by Don esgd as the name implies it is a collection of 21 different games that you can play with a couple of people and just your hands so these aren't exactly role playing games but I think this is a really great booklet of game design and I think it would be super fun to fit some of these into a role playing game you know there's a cool wh lizard blasting one called Mirror Shield there's a really cool riddle one called The Guardian that would be fun to drop into as like a a test to to get into a dungeon or something the artwork in the book is great there's even a section at the end that will help you create your own hand game I just think these hand games are so cool such a fun idea and I'd love to see more stuff like this make its way into the tabletop roleplaying Game World next up is another wonderful little hard cover book called the job by Andre navoa this is a game all about pulling off a a fun Heist you know Oceans 11 and Italian Job style ganto did the graphic design so the layout and Everything Is Awesome on point for the theme games onerous is the publisher so the the production value of this book is amazing and this one just seems like a super fun one shot kind of game so there's no stats or anything the the game play is very simple the players will choose uh a role to play that'll give them some some skills or or stunts as they're called and then they'll buy inventory and that that's kind of what makes up the the character sheet and the game plays out in two phases you sort of plan the heist and then you execute the heist there's complications that come in and as the heist goes on the tension Rises because you have a stack of D6 so whenever a a player fails an action or something goes wrong you add dice to the dice stack and once the the dice stack topples three times the heist is over the players get caught I think being a referee like a GM for this game would be super fun throwing out complications even coming up with Heist ideas and setting a budget and then seeing how the the players with their stunts and their their crazy ideas interact with that stuff just sounds really really fun to me definitely check out the job okay I hope you found some good suggestions in there definitely check out the links in the description and do me a favor leave a comment with with some game or some Adventure or some new book that you've been been loving recently I'm always looking for new games to play new books to check out and get inspired from so definitely hit me with your suggestions thank you so so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one see [Music] you

Channel: JP Coovert

Views: 10,440

Keywords: ttrpg, table top, roleplaying game, indie, indy, ose, old school essentials, cloud empress, mothership, crown and skull, runehammer, games omnivorous, the job, foundations, leyline press, table titans, table titans club, scott kurtz, hand games 21, jp coovert, review, preview, dnd, d&d, dungeons and dragons

Id: wj3rOGrtwN8

Length: 11min 58sec (718 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 07 2024